Best of 2016 Compendium

After struggling to flesh out various lists, I decided it's more fitting of the ethos of this blog (highlighting and recommending cool stuff, rather than actual criticism) to just throw it all into one big post. Since it's the last day of 2016, I figured I should really get around to posting it, so here we are. It was a weird as hell year, both for me personally and the country and world as a whole, but there sure was a lot of great music released, so let's keep holding on to that.

Songs:

Astronoid- "Up and Atom"
Awful pun for a title, but a top 3 chorus on the year. I dig the blackgaze-with-clean-vocals thing they have going on, and they show how well it works on the monster hook here. I'm all the way out on calling their style"dream thrash," I'm just as all in on how it actually sounds. For everyone who's ever longed for the crunchiness of the heavier metal styles but didn't want to sacrifice the soaring harmonies and upbeat attitude of the cleaner styles, Astronoid is here for you.
Youtube

Pelander- "Umbrella"

Gloomy English folk, which was all the tagline I needed to grab this one. The album as a whole didn't quite live up to , but this lead track showed the high potential this side project (Magnus Pelander's main band is Witchcraft) has. 
Youtube

Hexvessel- "Mirror Boy"

More gloomy folk, but Finnish this time. The band got even more psychedelic on this album When We Were Death, and though I don't dig it as much as some of their other sounds, it still came together as one of the best albums I heard this year. If you have any interest in prog rock, psychedelic music, or full-band folk, I couldn't recommend them more highly.
Youtube

Oathbreaker- "Second Son of R."

Is calling these guys Deafheaven but with female vocals kind of lazy? Maybe. Am I above that? Not really. They are signed to Deathwish Inc. though, (that’s Jake Bannon from Converge’s label) which also released Sunbather, so I’m not making connections out of thin air. Anyways. Caro Tanghe’s vocals are extraordinary, splitting between haunting cleans and a vicious snarl, and the metal behind it is every bit her equal. This is really good stuff.
Youtube

Singles: Two songs from bands that didn't release full-lengths this year:

Ragana- "You Take Nothing"
Raw, angry sludge. It's difficult to separate this track from its release date, the day after the election here in the US. The singer infuses a awe-inspiring mix of rage and defiance into the three words of the title, as the guitars crash around her.

No Hope/No Harm- "This Living Wage"
Slow, melancholic emo from my new home in Boston. The play a style more akin to the earlier heyday of emo than the more atmospheric sound of the current emo "revival" of bands like The World is a Beautiful Place, et al. I kind of get an American Music Club vibe from them. Very excited to see where they head in 2017.



Lines:

“Was kinda banking on a future that’d be involving you/but I couldn’t ask this of you”
(The Hotelier, "Two Deliverances")

I'll write more about The Hotelier a little further down in the post, but Goodness was an album filled with brilliant lines. "Piano Player" is the star of the show, but "Two Deliverances" packs even more of a punch. I don't think I've ever heard a song more accurately capture the sense of empty, unfilled time after a breakup than when singer Christian Holden asks "in the quiet empty hours of my afternoon, what am I supposed to do?"
Bandcamp

“You can’t just forget/ all those other lives you lived” 

(American Football, "Home is Where the Haunt Is")

I mostly avoided writing about American Football's LP2 because I felt it was a very personal album- both in content and context. Decade-plus haituses are always a dangerous thing, and it's often not worth it to only end up with a merely decent imitation of a band's former heights (see Weezer, Blink-182 and Metallica this year, and many others). Others may be invested in knowing that a band still has it (or at least isn't tarnishing their legacy), but I'm usually content to stick with the classics. But I had to hear this one, and I wanted to do so without the burden of what others wanted and expected from the record. So in that spirit I'll limit my own discussion- this album is so, so, good. 

Youtube

“Saw your boyfriend at the Port Authority/ sort of a fucked up place” (Pinegrove, "Old Friends")

Evan Stephens Hall has the talent that truly great songwriters possess to fit a world of feelings, meanings and context in a single line (see the “saw Leah on the bus” in the same song for the best example), and does so again here. This album is showing up on top-10's all over the place, and for good reason. Probably example number 1 of why all your "[Indie] Rock is dead" thinkpieces aren't worth the bandwidth it takes to load them.

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“I always thought I’d be/ the picture saved on your screen” (Hannah Diamond, "Fade Away")

No artist other than Hannah Diamond could get away with a line like that. She continues to walk the infinitesimal line between irony and earnest sincerity. The lyric video even spells out the word “meeeeee”! It’s been 2+ years and we’ve still only got 5 individual singles, but two of them (this and “Every Night”) are certified classics. I get why people don’t love PC Music- on their weaker stuff they sound just like the run of the mill David Guetta/Calvin Harris knockoffs they kind of are—but Hannah’s songs aren’t their weaker stuff.
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“I’ll always think of your lips/ When I’m moving mine against his” (Pity Sex, "Burden You")

Goddammit why are all my favorite lines this year about heartbreak…oh, right. Anyways, unfortunately this was the swansong for Pity Sex, as Britty Drake announced she’d be leaving after the album. It’s a shame because I was late to the party on them, but I'm really enjoying the simple, fuzzed out guitar rock they have going on. 

Youtube

Albums:

The Hotelier- Goodness

It’s something special to witness a songwriter so utterly sure of themselves that there’s really nothing that they can’t do. It’s a testament to Christian Holden’s force of narrative that he can pull off something as cliché as watching a wild animal in the woods and imbue the moment with existential significance without teetering over the edge into melodrama. I found Goodness to be a dense record I think as a result of its general lack of choruses, and admit that it takes some close listening to really unlock its intricacies. But what a payoff this album is if you take the time.

Goodness is a breakup record, yes, but of a kind I don’t think I’ve ever encountered before. There’s no anger here, no righteous fervor . But there’s everything else- the hurt and the pain, the quiet shock of “what do I do now?” and “what could I have done differently?”, but also the acceptance, the appreciation for everything you did have, and the recognition that nothing is really permanent anyways. It was certainly the album I needed this year, but I think its emotional significance will resonate with anyone who gives it a chance.

The Hotelier has never hesitated to take huge swings in their songs, and it’s stunning to see how frequently they connect. Goodness was an undeniably ambitious record, and now as the year winds down, I can say an undeniable success.

Joyce Manor- Cody

Where the Hotelier made me feel many different things Cody only made me feel one- happy- and that’s enough to give it my top spot for 2016. This is an endlessly replayable record, hitting the sweet spot between keeping songs from overstaying their welcome (the longest is “Stairs” at an eternity-by-Joyce-Manor-standards 4:01) without getting bogged down by a long tracklist. Cody is carefully crafted and endlessly enjoyable pop-punk. This was a fun record that never feels like it's trying too hard to be so- the lyrics get serious at times, but nonstop hooks keep everything jamming. This was the easiest and most enjoyable listen of the year, and if you missed it the first time around I recommend you hop on posthaste.

[That wraps up our regularly-scheduled programming for 2016. See you all in the new year!]

Best of 2016 (Non-2016 Edition)

Best of 2016 (Non 2016 Edition)

Before we disappear completely into year-end retrospectives and top-ten season, I’ll take a chance to highlight my favorite stuff that I found for the first time this year. In the interest of saving space I didn't bother embedding Youtube clips, but there's links to check everything out.

The Wonder Years- No Closer to Heaven

Reasonably big name in the modern pop-punk scene, I started listening when I bought a ticket to see them (Moose Blood was opening). They were solid live, and this album has a few of my most played tracks this year. Check "A Song for Patsy Cline" to start out.

[Youtube]

The Deep Dark Woods- The Place I Left Behind (2014)

Enjoyable folk/alt-country from Canada. Mix of softly-strummed acoustic guitar + tambourine and some electric guitar flourishes, like on heartwrenching set-piece “The Banks of the Leopold Canal”. Inoffensive enough to throw on at any low-key gathering, but with surprising depths that makes for a rewarding close listen.

[Youtube]

Blut Aus Nord- Memoria Vetusta I: Fathers of the Icy Age (1996)

Huge name in the black metal game, just took me a while to work my way through. I’ve heard the What Once Was series but they didn’t really take. This album is a little cleaner and more melodic (hard to believe this is the same band that made The Work Which Transforms God) with wicked guitar work and some nice chanty vocals. Highly recommended.

[Youtube]

Sleater Kinney- Dig Me Out (1997)

Likely don’t need much introduction on this band. They’re classic for a reason, I was just too young at the time. Listen up. "One More Hour" was my top-played track from about August through October. The sound on the link below is pretty good for live from a record store in '98.

[Youtube]

Wuthering Heights- Far From the Madding Crowd (2004)

A very solid power metal album, named for two books, though as far as I can tell, lyrically it deals with neither. The album features some folk elements in the form of occasional flutes and bagpipes, but not overwhelmingly so. Too much to really call it “stripped down,” but the album definitely doesn’t suffer from the overproduction that plagues so many power metal releases (more Helloween than Rhapsody of Fire, if you get me). Yes, there is a song called “Bad Hobbits Die Hard,” and it’s basically three minutes of guitar solos.

[Youtube]

Gods Reflex- Scenes from a Motel Seduction (2000)

 Unknown emo band from the original heyday. You probably gotta really like emo to bother with this one, but if you do and are looking for a fresh sound (that of course sounds like everything else), take a look. Worth it for the album title alone.

[Bandcamp] 

Diocletian- Gesundrian (2014)

Monster of a death metal album from 2014. As the prevailing trend is for death metal to get more atmospheric, Diocletian go straight for the jugular. Derek Engemann from Cattle Decapitation grabs this one in their “What’s in My Bag” video at Amoeba Records, so that’s a pretty solid co-sign. Peep the dope album cover too.

[Bandcamp]